113 
MINUTES OE PKOCEEDINGS OE 
success he now obtained a very cheap iron sufficiently strong for the exterior 
of our heavy guns, whilst in the plan of construction proposed by Mr 
B. S. Eraser, C.E„ E.G.E., he discerned a still more gratifying solution to 
the second question. 
The result of this double event was to decrease the cost of the guns by 
one-third, and a very considerable sum has thereby been saved already, not 
to mention the probable saving in our future estimates; and further economy 
is likely to take place from the home manufacture of wrought-iron in the 
Eoyal Gun Eactories. Scrap iron, old musket barrels, &c., &c., has for 
some time back been converted into bar iron, but recently puddling furnaces, 
and a rolling mill have been erected, and excellent gun iron is made from 
the useless stock of obsolete cast-iron ordnance. 
So that it is not impossible that carronades which boomed at Trafalgar 
and muskets which rang at Waterloo may again in their renovated form 
contribute to our future victories. 
The Fraser guns . 
The new or “E construction 33 (as it is officially designated) having success¬ 
fully stood a long course of severe tests, was adopted for service at the close of 
1866. It differs principally from the original or Armstrong construction in 
building-up a gun with a few double or triple coils instead of several finely- 
finished and accurately gauged single ones, and as there is so much less 
surface to be prepared a proportionate expense is saved, just as in book¬ 
binding, it is cheaper to get a book bound in one thick volume instead of 
in two or three thin ones. 
A double coil is made simply by winding a bar of red hot iron over one 
previously coiled in the reverse direction, and then welding and preparing 
the mass as a single coil. A triple coil is formed similarly, three bars 
being wound one over the other. 
Greater strength as well as less expense is claimed for the E system, as 
the greater the number of parts in a gun the more probability is there that 
some weakness will exist in the mass, as it is impossible to shrink on each 
part with its proper amount of tension or strain. 
Moreover the trunnion ring, which originally was merely shrunk on is 
now welded to the breech-piece, so there is no fear of it shifting forward, 
as was sometimes the case with the early Armstrong guns. 
But the difference of construction will be best understood by inspecting 
a section of a 9" gun on each system. See Eigs. 8, 9. 
The solid-ended steel tube, forged from a cast ingot bored out and 
toughened in oil is common to both, as is also the cascable screw of solid 
forged wrought-iron \ in addition to these the original construction has a 
